Vol. XI. No. 257. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



67 



Among pests that received a considerable amount 

 of attention, in discussion, were the cotton stainers, and 

 evidence was adduced to show that, where cotton pick- 

 ing is completed early, and the plants are removed 

 some time before the next crop is sown, the numbers 

 of cotton stainers in the fields are very largely reduced. 

 This matter is not sufficient, however, to account for 

 the instances of the sudden disappearance of cotton 

 stainers, from certain districts, that have taken place 

 from time to time, and these have not yet received 

 explanation. Another subject in which interest was 

 evinced particularly was the parasitism of plant lice by 

 insects, and it was stated that examples showing such 

 parasitism had been received, but that actual determin- 

 ations of the parasites have not yet been made. 



At the end of the session, the President drew the 

 attention of members of the Conference to the booklet 

 to be issued by the Imperial Dejiartment of Agriculture, 

 entitled Insect Pests of the Lesser Antilles, and pre- 

 pared by Mr. H. A. Ballou, M.Sc, Entomologist on the 

 Staff of the Department, proofcopies of which had been 

 distributed. Much appreciation was expressed by Dele- 

 gates, of the contents and nianner of production, of this 

 work, and evidence is to hand already that it will prove 

 eminently useful to agriculturists in the West Indies. 



The discussions at the remaining sessions of the 

 Conference will receive attention in the next number 

 of the AgriciUtaral Neivs. 



DEMERARA SUGAR-CANES IN LOUISIANA. 



The sugar planters, field managers and centra] factory 

 operatives of the Lower Coast liavo up to the present season 

 enjoyed twelve consecutive j-ears of expfrience in the cultiva- 

 tion and manufacture into sugar of the Demerara seedling 

 canes numbers 74 and 9.5, introduced into this State by 

 Professor Stubbs, then Director of the Sugar Experiment 

 Station, some twenty odd years since. 



In Plaquemines pari.sb, which produces most of the 

 sugar made on the banks of the Mississippi Eiver below 

 New Orleans, both of these two varieties of seedling canes 

 have proved themselves so very far superior to the former 

 general type of red and striped ribbon canes, that they have 

 largely forced the latter out of cultivation, and this season, 

 on the entire West Bank of Plaquemines parish, the cultiva- 

 tion of the older variety of cane has been virtually abandoned, 

 as no seed has been, or will be, put up this season for its per- 

 petuation. 



From the personal observation of the writer of this article, 

 the virtues of these two new varieties of cane are so nearly 

 even that it has been difhcult to determine which is the more 

 valuable of the two. The Louisiana Planter has editorially 

 described the relative advantages of D.74, at such great 

 length and so often, that it will not be necessary to rejteat 

 them here. But on the Lower Coast, 1)74 is coming to 



be regarded as involving too much risk from storm breakage, 

 to form the main proportion of a cane crop. It suffered fear- 

 fully in this section in the storm of September 20, 1909. In 

 the blow of short duration of the 1 2th instant, from the north, 

 with a forty-mile-an-hour velocity, there was again consider- 

 able damage done to the tall D.74 plant cane by top and stalk 

 breakage, in some fields such damage being at least a loss of 

 10 per cent. 



With the above-repeated lesson, this greatest disadvan- 

 tage will probably lead ultimately to a complete discontinu- 

 ance of the cultivation of D.74 on the Lower Coast, much to 

 the regret of those who have noted its numerous superiorities 

 in other respects. 



P>ut the weight of planting and manufacturing opinion 

 in this special district is that the D.95 will more profitably 

 replace the diminishing D.74; and the probability is that 

 D 9.5 will in a few years be the exclusive cane in that 

 part of the sugar belt, unless some superior seedling be 

 soon imported. 



The D.9.5 requires the same intensive tilth as D.74, 

 and under similar conditions, with an average rainfall, will 

 produce, or has produced, a heavier tonnage than ever ob- 

 tained from D 74, or any other kind of cane grown on the 

 Lower Coast Forty-five tons to the acre has lieen the product 

 of a field of 60 acres. 



As seed it does not keep as well as the D.74, but from 

 good seed makes as good a stand of plant cane, and very f.ir 

 better stands of stubble [ratoons] 



In storms it is never broken, and rarely blown pro.strate, 

 bowing before the wind to an angle of almost 45 degrees, 

 and keeping its joints well clear of the ground. 



To cane borers, compared to the D.74, it is almost 

 immune. 



As a cold resister it is far .superior to the striped cane 

 and about equal to D.74. In the blizzard of Novem- 

 ber 13, as far up as Belle Alliance, near the head of Bayou 

 Lafourche, where the minimum temperature was 24 degrees, 

 much D.95 cane was so little injured as not to be hurt for 

 seed, as none of the eyes were killed. 



The Louidana Planter has already published several 

 articles concerning the adai)tability of the D.95 cane to the 

 rank reclaimed marsh and swamp lands of the Lower Coast, 

 where in the first season's planting such cane has yielded 

 more than ISO %. of sugar to the ton, while striped cane 

 on such ;ioil would not have given enough sugar the first year 

 of its planting to pay the cost of its cutting and hauling to 

 mill. 



While the sucrose percentage of D. 95 is very nearly 

 equal to that of D. 74 under similar conditions and 

 environment in the beginning and middle of the grinding 

 campaigns, it is fully equal in the latter half of the season, 

 and from start to finish much higher than that of the striped 

 cane. 



I'uring this season, in at least two of the four central f ic- 

 tories of the Lower Coast, the sugar yields have been fairly 

 satisfactory in the three first weeks of the campaign, having 

 attained an average from the start of very nearly 160 tti, of 

 sugar to the ton of cane. The fact of this yield having been 

 well above the general average of the sugar belt is almost 

 certainly due to the almost exclusive handling of the seedling 

 canes, D. 95 forming the greater part of the raw material. 



In view of the Lower Coast's justified partiality to the 

 D.95 cane, perhaps it would be well for the planters of the 

 sugar belt generally to pay more attention to that com- 

 paratively neglected seedling, and at least give it a fair trial 

 in their lower grounds. (From the Loui'^iana Planter, Novem 

 her 25, 1911.) 



